Centrale – Grand Prix Rejectshttps://gprejects.com
Sat, 12 May 2018 09:17:15 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.122014: The Sorry Saga of Sauberhttps://gprejects.com/centrale/2014-the-sorry-saga-of-sauber
Sat, 12 May 2018 09:01:08 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1719Peter Sauber’s eponymous racing team became synonymous with midfield competency during their years in Formula One, notwithstanding a brief BMW-assisted detour to the front of the grid in the late 2000s. After Bavaria withdrew its factory support in 2009 as a result of the global economic downturn, however, Peter once again took the helm of Sauber, aiming to stabilise the outfit before returning to his retirement. Monisha Kaltenborn was chosen as Mr Sauber’s successor, eventually assuming full control of the team in late 2012.

That season represented the high water mark of Sauber’s independent years, as the team designed a car that treated the Pirelli tyres like royalty. Spurred on by a hungry, youthful driving pairing, Sauber sprung several surprises as Sergio Perez nearly won two races, while long-term fan favourite Kamui Kobayashi scored an emotional podium in front of his home fans at Suzuka. All in all the team very nearly pipped the works Mercedes squad in the constructors championship.

The Sauber C31 was a rocketship…quite literally in this instance! Monaco 2012

Regrettably the package could not stay together for 2013. Perez was snapped up by McLaren to replace Lewis Hamilton, while Kobayashi was unable to keep his sponsorship package together. Nico Hulkenberg jumped over from Force India to spearhead Sauber’s challenge, fresh off a run of headline-making performances in late 2012. After a slow start the German became the form driver of the midfield by season’s end, dragging in points by the sackload, but 2013 could not hold a candle to Sauber’s heroics the previous year.

Meanwhile Esteban Gutierrez graduated from GP2 to take the second seat, bringing his distinctive eyebrows to the F1 paddock while depositing a nice slice of Claro cash in Sauber’s bank account. He repaid the team with a solitary seventh at Suzuka, his only top ten finish all season. All too often the Mexican could be found plumbing the depths of the lower midfield or the nearest gravel trap, making it rather difficult for bystanders to judge the true potential of the Sauber C32 given Hulkenberg’s heroics in the sister car. Replacing the ultra-popular Kobayashi did not exactly endear Gutierrez with the F1 fanbase, either.

But hidden behind the headlines Hulkenberg had generated on track was a story of discontent. Rumours swirled around that the team was fast running out of cash. A rather dodgy Russian sponsor appeared to offer salvation, albeit with the caveat that 18 year old Sergey Sirotkin would be given a race seat for 2014. While these rumours eventually fizzled out, it was then revealed that Hulkenberg had effectively been driving for free all season, such was the extent of Sauber’s cash flow issues.

Nico Hulkenberg driving like he’s stolen it. Korea 2013.

With seemingly no prospect of his wages being paid at all, Hulkenberg jumped back to Force India the moment he could for 2014. In what effectively became a straight swap, fellow countryman Adrian Sutil left Force India to ink a two year deal with Hinwil. Living up to his tag of being the world’s stingiest billionaire, Carlos Slim reduced the size of Gutierrez’s sponsorship package for the coming season, but there was still plenty enough in the kitty for the Mexican to retain his seat. Compared to their midfield rivals, Sauber’s new driving line-up for 2014 was hardly making hearts flutter with anticipation. Sutil was seen as a midfield journeyman at best, and, at worst, viewed as nothing more than an inferior facsimile of the departing Hulkenberg. Esteban, meanwhile, had his work cut out to prove he belonged in F1.

The Sauber C33, Hinwil’s first design of the new turbo era, was officially unveiled on January 26th. The launch revealed a rather basic, simplistic chassis complete with the obligatory extended nose cone, and retaining the battleship grey livery adopted in 2013. The consensus amongst the F1 fraternity was that the C33 represented a staid, conservative approach, and that the team would find themselves propping up the midfield in 2014. Good for a couple of points finishes surely, but they’d be outclassed by the new Williams and Force India packages.

Outclassed is perhaps too mild a term to describe Sauber’s 2014…

While pre-season headlines were dominated by the litany of failures plaguing those with Renault lumps in the back, the new Sauber quietly clocked up significant mileage on track, the team seemingly birthing a reliable platform utilising the Ferrari turbo hybrid . To the casual observer Hinwil appeared in reasonable shape compared to the horror show concurrently taking place at Lotus and Red Bull, but the Renault fiasco had provided a smokescreen which hid the C33’s shortcomings from the rest of the paddock. Working through a variety of aero setups, the team quickly realised the new car was fundamentally flawed. Bloated, overweight, and deeply underwhelming in race trim, Sauber were inexorably set for an uphill struggle.

Plain, bland, mediocre, insipid, the C33 spanned all of these adjectives. Jerez 2014.

Fast forward a few weeks later to Melbourne, and Hinwil managed to achieve the unthinkable during the most highly-anticipated F1 season opener in years: be almost totally invisible. While every other team generated headlines for a variety of reasons, Sauber remained in the background, the insipid graphite shade of its livery becoming an effective metaphor for the team itself. But no matter, with heavy unreliability predicted around Albert Park the mood was optimistic in the Swiss pits.

Come race day and with both cars buried deep in the midfield after qualifying, Sauber opted for a conservative approach. This worked initially as Sutil was able to graze the points-scoring positions for a short time before dropping back. His teammate, meanwhile, had picked off where he left 2013 by spinning into Sergio Perez on the first lap before trundling around for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually, both C33s ran in tandem to the chequered flag achieving the dizzying heights of 11th and 12th , but already alarm bells were going off at Hinwil. Despite showing up at Melbourne with the automotive equivalent of a bad hangover, not only were Lotus able to clock significant mileage during the race, they were able to run faster than Sutil and Gutierrez, until both E23s inevitably spluttered to a halt.

A fortnight later in Malaysia, Sauber’s worst fears were confirmed; the C33 was a pup. A double DNF illustrated that the impression of reliability the team had shown in testing was all a mirage, most likely achieved by running a severely detuned car. To make matters worse, Romain Grosjean hustled his recalcitrant Lotus to the chequered flag in 11th, already showing more promise than Sauber despite their testing travails.

We have lift off for the Space Shuttle Gutierrez. Bahrain 2014

The European season had not even begun and yet Hinwil already found itself resorting to desperation tactics. Sutil had allegedly starved himself for two days to become more competitive, sparking a debate as to how far F1 drivers should go in the pursuit of competitiveness. But it would be his team mate who would be writing the headlines post-race. Battling with Pastor Maldonado for 13th, the Venezuelan made a rash overtaking manoeuvre into the first corner and tipped the Mexican onto his lid in a spectacular collision. Although not intentionally, Gutierrez quite literally earned the team more air time than they had in the previous three races combined. Unsurprisingly, the Mexican’s impression of a Space Shuttle didn’t earn the team any points, while Sutil’s starvation tactics culminated in a dire qualifying session and a daft, race-ending clash with Jean-Eric Vergne.

Despite its sordid start to the season, the team could be forgiven for looking forward to F1’s annual trip to Monaco. If any track could level the competition it would be the unforgiving streets of Monte Carlo; indeed, Sutil was in his element on Sunday, pulling off a series of increasingly riskier passes around the tight streets. But the Principality doesn’t tolerate being disrespected, and on lap 23 the track would have its revenge, a vicious bump outside the tunnel spitting Sutil into a one-way trip along the armco and escape road. The German’s day was done.

The net result when you treat Monaco with disrespect. (Photo: WRi2)

His team mate was also having a decent afternoon, quietly hauling himself into eighth. Esteban then decided to undo all his good work with an embarrassing shunt at Rascasse on lap 59 where he seemingly forgot how tight the corner was. To make matters worse, this unforced error promoted Jules Bianchi’s Marussia into the top 10. None of the “new teams” had scored points before, and now Gutierrez had handed a golden opportunity for the Anglo-Russian squad to leapfrog Hinwil in the constructors.

However, word filtered in that Bianchi was being served with a ten second time penalty for lining up in the wrong grid box at the start. This was a direct result of, wait for it, Gutierrez doing the same thing further up the field! Ironically, it was looking like this mistake by the Mexican had actually saved Sauber the indignity of being outscored by a “new team”. While the F1 fan base erupted in anger, the Swiss pit crew crossed their fingers and hoped Bianchi would run out of laps to mitigate his penalty. With both C33s looking fit for the scrapyard their destiny was out of their control.

On lap 74 those hopes were dashed to the delight of millions. Kimi Raikkonen made a clumsy attempt to pass Kevin Magnussen at Loews, leaving both drivers unable to make the hairpin. The resulting delay ensured that Bianchi would finish in the points regardless of his time penalty. Indeed, Sauber could count themselves lucky that Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson was too far behind to take advantage of the Raikkonen/Magnussen contretemps, as the Swede finished in an agonising eleventh. The Swiss squad had been spared from being left rock bottom statistically, though no doubt the mood within the team was already there. Meanwhile Grosjean snaffled another handful of points for the beleaguered Lotus squad, showing Hinwil the correct way to take advantage of attrition.

After being embarrassed around the Principality, Sauber responded with another string of nondescript, anonymous races. It was becoming fairly apparent that no update packages or trick setups could render the C33 competitive. An ignominious stat was clocked up after Canada – Sauber had never gone this deep into a season without scoring points. Sutil finished thirteenth on the road in Canada, despite only eleven cars actually making the chequered flag…

Sutil summing up Sauber’s season rather succinctly. Germany 2014.

The rumour mill kicked up a notch as apparently Sutil’s sponsors had not paid up and that he would be replaced during the summer break in favour of reserve driver Giedo van der Garde. With the help of a large bag of McGregor money, the Dutchman had allegedly put pen to paper for a race seat in 2015. Remember this fact, as we’ll be returning to it later. Sutil’s case for staying in his seat was not helped by a rather embarrassing retirement at Hockenheim where he lazily spun and stalled on the pit straight in front of his home fans.

Nonetheless Sutil remained in the car for Hungary, where he became the butt of an unintentionally hilarious exchange. Having been dumped out of Q1,a fuming Romain Grosjean was caught on air shouting “so we couldn’t even beat Sutil!?” at his race engineer over the radio; a telling sign of just how far Sauber’s already modest stock had fallen. Race day dawned wet and miserable, conditions where miracles can happen. But no miracles were forthcoming for the battleship-grey machines, as Sutil splashed home in 11th. One second and one place was all that separated Sutil from one point, one point which might have saved Hinwil’s blushes. By now it was becoming clear that the team were destined for a dreaded pointless season.

Belgium 2014; perhaps the only time Sauber raced a Williams for position all year.

The summer break came and went with seemingly no solutions to Sauber’s predicament. Indeed the team picked up where they left off with more uninspiring performances at Spa and Monza. However, Gutierrez looked genuinely competitive around the streets of Singapore, running in eighth on merit for a while. Unfortunately, the humid conditions and unforgiving Singapore bumps ruined the electrical system on his C33 consigning him to an early bath. The understandably frustrated Mexican was then caught on camera having a temper tantrum in the pit garage, endearing himself to absolutely no-one.

Meanwhile his team mate was having a torrid afternoon, somehow managing the impressive feat of performing an undercut on fresh air during the first round of pit stops. Having illustrated how poor his race pace was, the German then decided to showcase his racecraft by pushing Sergio Perez into a wall , bringing out a safety car and earning himself a penalty. His C33 then mercifully broke down before Sutil could cause any further chaos.

The wet and wild conditions that Typhoon Phanfone brought to Suzuka handed Sauber another chance to score those elusive points. However, an unusually low-attrition race meant neither driver could progress up the field, hampered by the C33’s awful aerodynamic package. With conditions deteriorating rapidly in the final third of the race it was only a matter of time before someone went off, and Sutil became that driver by aquaplaning into the gravel trap at the Dunlop Curve. The German could then do nothing but watch in horror as Formula One’s first fatal accident since 1994 unfolded in front of him. Jules Bianchi lost control at the exact same place a lap later and ploughed into the recovery vehicle removing the stricken Sauber at unabated speed. A photographer at the scene captured Sutil’s grief-stricken reactions all too clearly.

The shellshocked F1 circus arrived at Sochi barely a week later. Sutil bravely agreed to race, with many observers expressing concern about his frame of mind given the traumatic events he had witnessed. Continuing the stream of bad news plaguing the sport, the eye-watering costs of F1 had finally proved too much for the “new teams”, as first Caterham, and then Marussia, entered administration shortly after the Russian GP. With neither team likely to return to the track, Sauber were handed a lifeline in their battle to avoid the dreaded “nul points”.

As the paddock arrived in Texas for the US GP the mood in the Swiss pits had become somewhat optimistic. Sutil demonstrated this by stringing together a stellar set of laps in qualifying, eventually doing well enough for ninth on the grid. This returned Sauber to Q3 for the first time in almost a year, and with only 18 cars racing at COTA, the field had been thinned considerably. Adrian carried the hopes of everyone at Hinwil with him as he lined up for the race start the next day.

By the end of the first lap however, those hopes had been snuffed out thanks to the efforts of Sergio Perez, who made a clumsy move on the German and ended up breaking the Sauber’s front suspension. However, knowing the C33’s diabolical race pace, it would have been a stretch for Sutil to stay in the points against the Toro Rosso and Lotus drivers. Gutierrez kindly illustrated this by finishing plumb dead last.

Watch out Sergio, Sutil’s coming to glass you! Texas 2014

Abu Dhabi marked the conclusion of the Formula One season, and the end of an era for Sauber. A twenty-one season streak of scoring points came to an insipid end as Esteban and Adrian trundled home in 15th and 16th, neither even able to challenge Nico Rosberg’s malfunctioning Mercedes. Indeed, the only driver finishing behind the Saubers was Will Stevens in a Caterham, peddling a car which had spent most of the previous month gathering dust in a warehouse near Leafield.

Tenth overall in the Constructors meant the team were facing a huge cut in the amount of TV rights money for the next couple of seasons. Drastic action was required from Monisha Kaltenborn to keep the team solvent. Marcus Ericsson’s treasure trove of Swedish sponsors enabled him to bail from the dying husk of Caterham and secure a race seat at Sauber, while Kaltenborn negotiated a deal with GP2 runner-up Felipe Nasr, bringing upwards of £20 million from Banco do Brasil. This also enabled the team to banish the battleship grey livery for a vibrant blue and yellow identity for 2015. Having burnt every bridge within the vicinity of Hinwil, Esteban Gutierrez was cut loose. It certainly said something that Sauber would rather lose Carlos Slim’s sponsorship than keep the Mexican in a race seat for 2015…

However, earlier in this article we mentioned that Giedo van der Garde had signed a deal for a race seat in 2015. Indeed, Adrian Sutil had signed for two years at Sauber. Insiders within the paddock started wondering how four drivers could occupy two seats. Barring some form of quantum physics being applied, it was only a matter of time before the proverbial hit the fan. While Sutil’s contract was quietly bought out, an incensed van der Garde took the legal route, eventually having his contract recognised as legally binding by an Australian court a few days before the Australian GP. This led to a rather ugly standoff on the Friday where the Dutchman was initially barred from the paddock, and once granted access started trying on Ericsson’s overalls for size. Eventually van der Garde accepted a buyout offer but Sauber and Monisha Kaltenborn looked like rank amateurs, a complete laughing stock.

This sorry saga was overshadowed by a long-overdue return to the points on Sunday thanks to Felipe Nasr, finally capping the lid on a tumultuous 18 months where Sauber were seemingly treading down the same path to oblivion that Brabham, Team Lotus and Arrows had followed. But 2014 had inflicted untold damage to the team’s standing. Not only had the team’s competitiveness fallen off a building the size of The Shard, Hinwil’s reputation for competence had also been shredded through Kaltenborn’s pick-n-mix approach to driver contracts. The net result was that, with the demise of the new teams, Sauber had now become F1’s only true backmarker squad (barring the brief revival of Manor/Marussia). It is only now in 2018, thanks to increased involvement from Ferrari that the team look capable of moving back into the midfield.

]]>1985: From Alfa to Omegahttps://gprejects.com/centrale/1985-from-alfa-to-omega
Sat, 03 Mar 2018 11:00:07 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1632In Formula One’s formative seasons, the Alfa Romeo name provoked fear into their competitors. By 1985 the Italian team were little more than a laughing stock in the F1 paddock. What went wrong?

The first powerhouse of Formula One, the works Alfa squad swept the first two seasons of the championship with their mighty supercharged Alfetta. Despite this success, the die was already cast for Milan by the middle of 1951. The Alfetta was largely based on a prewar design, and their great rivals Scuderia Ferrari were now producing state-of-the-art cars which could easily hang with the works Alfas. With the Italian government refusing to fund a new chassis, Milan announced their withdrawal from F1 at the end of 1951.

The master and ruler of the F1 world, the legendary Alfetta.

More than a quarter of a century would pass until Alfa Romeo reappeared in F1, but the works squad that competed between 1979 and 1985 was a mere shadow of the legendary prewar and early 1950s dream team.

In between these efforts, there would be the odd privateer entry crowbarring an Alfa lump into the back of their steed during the 60’s and 70’s. This included Italian almost-reject Andrea de Adamich, who persuaded March and McLaren to let him use Alfa engines during the early 70s.

None of these entries were successful enough to tempt Milan back into F1 as a manufacturer. In 1976 though, that changed when Bernie Ecclestone and his Brabham squad agreed a deal with Carlo Chiti to run Alfa Romeo’s flat-12 engine, which was being used successfully by their Autodelta sportscar program.

Despite the power output of the flat-12, which was significantly higher than the ubiquitous Cosworth DFV at the time, the Alfa was heavier, more unreliable and thirstier than the DFV. During a truly disastrous 1979 season, Brabham announced they would return to Cosworth power for 1980. Alfa Romeo’s tenure with Brabham yielded 14 podiums, including two victories for Niki Lauda in 1978, and a best place of third in the constructors, also in 1978.

After Brabham’s announcement, Carlo Chiti engaged his masterplan. He persuaded the management at Milan to allow Autodelta to develop a chassis for the team, and at the 1979 Belgian Grand Prix Alfa Romeo as a defacto manufacturer entry returned to the F1 paddock.

Staying true to Alfa’s road car reputation, the new car was not the most reliable package on the grid and the image of Alfas stopped by the side of the track quickly became a common sight during this time period. An improved chassis, the 179, was introduced in late 1979. This was developed by Patrick Depailler, and during the 1980 and 1981 seasons was not an uncompetitive car by any means. The Frenchman was regarded as a gifted development driver, and his death during test at Hockenheim in 1980 dealt the team a massive blow.

A reworked engine had been introduced for 1980 which was better than the previous design since it didn’t consume as much fuel, but it still suffered the same chronic unreliability as its predecessor. Bruno Giacomelli saw the checkered flag only three times in 1980, despite collecting the team’s first points since its return as a factory squad at the German Grand Prix. Alfa signed former champion Mario Andretti for 1981, and the season that followed no doubt hastened the American’s departure to Indycars, as he scored only three points all year. Giacomelli netted the team’s first podium that year, but the squad hadn’t really made any major ground relative to the competition. All talk and no trousers was how many viewed the Alfa works effort.

1983 ended up being the best season for this incarnation of Alfa Romeo, when they ditched the V12 lump for a V8 turbocharged unit. The team eventually got what would be their best results in this return, with Andrea de Cesaris scoring second place finishes in both Germany and South Africa. The Italian even flirted briefly with outright victory, having lead eighteen laps in Belgium before a characteristic Alfa engine failure robbed him of his aspirations.

The next season marked the beginning of the end for Alfa’s works squad. Despite the introduction of a sleeker chassis for 1984, the turbocharged V8 engine had now become a major problem. Having proven to be somewhat competitive the previous year, the V8 was lagging behind in terms of raw power output compared to the TAG and BMW units of rival teams. With refuelling banned and a maximum fuel limit of 220 litres per race introduced, fuel saving became another problem since the engine was still particularly thirsty. Despite scoring eleven points, just seven less than the year before, Alfa Romeo’s competitiveness had dropped, both pace wise and reliability wise. The team suffered many engine related failures throughout the year, with Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Cheever often running out of fuel before the chequered flag.

Patrese and Cheever at speed, or coasting to a halt with no fuel? Answers on a postcard please!

For 1985, Alfa Romeo introduced a new chassis – the 185T. Designed by Mario Tolletino and John Gentry, the 185T was supposed to switch things around for Alfa Romeo, with its sleek body aiming to reduce aerodynamic drag in order to improve fuel consumption. There was no shortage of driving talent behind the wheel – Patrese and Cheever signed new contracts, although rumours that the pair didn’t really like each other floated around the paddock.

However, the engine still posed a major issue. While rival power units were already reaching 900hp output in race trim, the Alfa V8 could only achieve a measly 640hp which meant that Patrese and Cheever would be sitting ducks on tracks with long straights and high-speed sections. This showed during the first three races of the season as the team were stuck in the midfield in qualifying, before suffering three straight double retirements.

The Monaco GP featured an update package for the 185T. With the Principality being a track where power output wasn’t really important Eddie Cheever managed to place his Alfa fourth on the grid, just a mere three tenths off Ayrton Senna’s pole time in his vastly superior Lotus. Come race day Cheever kept himself in the points before an alternator problem hit the Alfa on lap 7, and three laps later Eddie was a spectator for the rest of the day. In the meantime, Patrese decided to produce perhaps the only lasting memory of Alfa Romeo in 1985 when he moved across Nelson Piquet’s much faster Brabham, who was trying to overtake on the pit straight. All this achieved was two destroyed cars and a guaranteed spot on crash montages for years to come.

Patrese making a rather fine mess of his afternoon, Monaco 1985.

The 185T finally saw a chequered flag at the following race at Montreal, where Patrese and Cheever came home in tenth and seventeenth place respectively. On the twisty streets of Detroit the 185T once again showed competitiveness, with Cheever qualifying in seventh place. Despite a good start where he ran as high as fifth, Cheever was forced to pit at the end of the first lap and all his hopes and dreams were crushed right there. He still made a comeback drive to ninth while Patrese suffered a electrical failure on lap 19 while running in last place.

France saw another double finish, as Cheever led home a 10-11 for the team, before the team decided they had enough of the 185T. Modifying the previous year’s 184T into current spec, the 184TB as it was dubbed became their car for the year from Germany onward. This was after the British GP where Patrese took his 185T to ninth place overall, while Cheever’s 184TB suffered a turbo failure.

The 185T being prepared for its final outing, Silverstone 1985

The season continued to deteriorate. Despite an incredible qualifying effort for Patrese in Germany – a ninth place on the brand new Nurburgring must have seemed like pole considering the power deficit of the engine – the updated 184TB proved to be even more unreliable than the 185T. Only at the European Grand Prix did the cars see the checkered flag again, with Patrese in ninth place and Cheever in eleventh.

The team ended the season pointless, beaten in the constructors by fellow Italians Osella and Minardi – outfits which were operating on a fraction of the budget that Milan were providing to their works squad. To the surprise of no-one, Alfa Romeo announced they were pulling out of Formula One for the second time shortly afterwards.

Overall, Alfa Romeo’s second tenure in F1 as a factory entry brought the team five podiums, two pole positions and a laundry list of missed opportunities. It was a far cry from the glory days some 30 to 50 years earlier. Alfa’s V8 continued to be used in F1 by Osella until 1987. Milan had been supplying their countrymen with engines since 1983. Piercarlo Ghinzani’s fifth place in the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix was the only highlight in that relationship, with the V8 engine illustrating its appalling reliability for another couple of seasons.

Eddie Cheever hustling his 185T into places it had no right to be, Monaco 1985

One could say that the logical thing would be carrying with the 185T for the remainder of the season. This is despite Riccardo Patrese later dubbing it as “the worst car he had ever driven”. The 185T certainly showed promise on occasion as proven by Eddie Cheever’s performances on tight circuits, but the engine was its downfall. Had Alfa Romeo ditched the V8 in favour of a more suitable design like a V6 engine – which became the way to go during the turbo era of F1 – it might have developed into a good platform to fight for points, or at the very least be more reliable than it really was.

The Alfa Romeo name returns to Formula One in 2018 as the main sponsor of the Sauber team. The question remains: will Alfa one day return to their glory days, or will they replicate the waste of money, talent and resources that summed up their previous stint in Formula One.

]]>Six of the Best: Rejects in the Daytona 500https://gprejects.com/centrale/lists/daytona-500
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 11:00:02 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1607Every category has its jewel in the crown. Formula One has the glittering, glamourous Monaco Grand Prix, the World Endurance Championship has the gruelling 24 Hours of Le Mans, and IndyCar boasts the grandiose Indianapolis 500. They’re all fantastically unique events, and plenty of racing drivers have tested their mettle in all three – with Fernando Alonso the most recent example to try his luck at the unofficial Triple Crown.

In comparison, few F1 drivers have ever taken a chance at the Daytona 500, the NASCAR Cup Series’ blue-riband event. Whether that’s because the nature of oval-bothering stock cars is so far removed from the world of F1, or because drivers are simply too afraid to do battle against NASCAR’s finest drivers around a superspeedway, there’s historically been very little cross-pollination.

Kurt Busch wins 2017’s Daytona 500 (AP)

Regardless, we’ve managed to delve into the annals of history to pick out six F1 rejects who joined the NASCAR Cup field at Daytona, in recognition of 2018’s season opener.

6. Bob Said (1959)

Father of Boris Said, the famed NASCAR road course specialist – or ringer, to adopt the relevant terminology – Bob Said was a famed Olympian, taking part in the bobsled (honestly!) events in the 1968 and 1972 Winter Olympics.

Just under a decade before his bobsledding exploits, Said took part in dual runnings in F1 and NASCAR in 1959, joining future two-time Cup champion Buck Baker in his eponymous team for the inaugural Daytona 500. The race itself was famous for the controversial photo finish between Johnny Beauchamp and Lee Petty – Beauchamp took to victory lane but, after further review of the race, Petty was declared the victor on the following Wednesday.

Not that it mattered much in Said’s case. Suffering a transmission failure in his Chevrolet, Said retired after 42 laps and was classified 50th overall in the final standings. Later in the year, Said took part in the first United States Grand Prix at Sebring, racing a Connaught, but managed to spin off on the first lap!

Adapting to the rigours of Formula 1 was certainly easier Said than done.

5. Danny Sullivan (1994)

The Kentucky-native was something of a latecomer to the motorsport world, not making his F1 debut until the relatively late age of 33. Joining Ken Tyrrell’s eponymous outfit in 1983 at the behest of title sponsor Benetton, who wanted to expand their scope in the US with an American driver, Sullivan struggled in his switch from IndyCar and managed only two points with a fifth-place finish at Monaco.

Sullivan was more successful in the States, winning the IndyCar title in 1988 and spending most of his time among the front-runners before losing his Galles drive to Adrian Fernandez for 1994. With no other Indy Car drives on the horizon, Sullivan embarked upon a new commentary career, supplementing his income by attempting a few rounds of the NASCAR Cup series, starting with the Daytona 500.

Danny Sullivan with Virtue Racing. His NASCAR stint, ironically, was without virtue.

His attempt at Daytona was over before it began. Joining Chris Virtue’s small outfit, Sullivan withdrew after Neil Bonnett and Rodney Orr perished in separate accidents in practice for the 500. Although this barely counts as an attempt, Sullivan made further efforts in the 1994 season, failing to qualify at North Carolina and Atlanta before making it into the field for the Brickyard 400, finishing a lowly 33rd at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

He signed up for one more NASCAR Cup round a year later in 1995’s round at Indianapolis, again with Virtue, but a colossal crash the week before at the IndyCar round at Michigan ended Sullivan’s racing career on the spot.

4. Brian Naylor (1961)

Naylor took to the start-line in seven F1 Grands Prix in the 1950s, driving in his self-entered Cooper-derived JBW car. The chassis was not particularly conducive to success, lacking the funding of manufacturer outfits, and as a result Naylor failed to score in any of his outings across five years.

Prior to his final F1 season in 1961, Naylor decided to take part in that year’s Daytona 500, the third 500-mile event ever held at the world-famous Florida venue. Piloting a Warner Brothers (not THOSE Warner Bros)-run Ford Falcon, Naylor became the first European ever to take part in NASCAR.

It was a dramatic event, with multiple crashes in the qualifying heats unsettling even the established drivers. The Daytona 500 itself was a tentative affair – the officials threatened to punish any robust driving – and as a result the race was run entirely without a caution. Naylor completed just 85 laps before an engine problem forced the Brit out of the running. He was classified 42nd overall, paving the way for a smattering of European drivers to give NASCAR a try.

3. Max Papis (2010)

On the back of his less-than-successful foray in F1 with the Footwork team, Massimiliano “Mad Max” Papis joined the NASCAR Cup field in 2006 via almost a decade of competing in CART/IndyCar.

Token appearances with the now-successful Furniture Row Racing and Haas CNC Racing runners at Watkins Glen were without much success, but nonetheless Papis joined part-timers Germain Racing in 2009 for 21 races.

It wasn’t until the following year that Papis made his first start at the Daytona 500, sticking with Germain, debuting with Michael McDowell and Brad Keselowski. Papis qualified 31st, just one place behind fellow ex-F1 racer Scott Speed, and was running steadily in the lower midfield. Approaching half-distance, Papis pulled in with an engine problem and was unable to return to the track.

After completing half of the season with Germain, Papis made just one more Cup appearance after 2010, returning to his “roots” as a road course ringer with Stewart-Haas Racing after Tony Stewart sustained a leg injury following a crash in 2013.

Scott Speed (#82) and Max Papis(#13) run side-by-side at Daytona in 2010.

2. Scott Speed (2009, 2010, 2013)

After being unceremoniously dumped out of Toro Rosso due to a year and a half of underperformance in F1 the ironically-named Speed was drafted into Red Bull’s NASCAR Cup line-up in 2008, failing to qualify at Charlotte in his first appearance.

After the #82 car was given a full-time schedule in the following year, Speed managed to qualify for his first Daytona 500, qualifying 38th ahead of the illustrious names of Matt Kenseth and Bill Elliott.

While Kenseth climbed the field, eventually winning the rain-shortened event after 152 laps, Speed stayed rooted to the rear of the pack and brought his Toyota Camry home in 35th place.

Speed remained with Red Bull for the 2010 edition of the race, which was brought into overtime following a litany of late crashes. The California native narrowly avoided a pile-up himself on the final lap, having narrowly evaded Jeff Gordon’s sideways Chevrolet having been tagged by Denny Hamlin at the final corner.

Missing the next two Daytona 500s, Speed returned in 2013 with the part-time Leavine Family Racing team, putting the #95 Ford Fusion 35th in qualifying – just 0.004mph slower than Michael McDowell’s best run! Speed completed the full 200 laps, albeit down in 21st position following a late caution.

After a few more races for Leavine, Speed stepped away from NASCAR and embarked on a very successful Global Rallycross career.

1. A. J. Foyt (1963-1993)

The Formula 1 credentials of “Super Tex” are a hot topic of debate, and GPRejects is divided as to whether he actually qualifies as a “reject” driver since his only F1 outings came when the Indy 500 was a championship round.

Nonetheless, he’s a legend of the American racing scene, and it would be remiss of us not to include him.

A champion multiple times over in USAC-sanctioned categories, Foyt first tried the Daytona 500 in 1963, snatching a fantastic third place in his qualifying race in his Ray Nichels-run Pontiac. He led six laps, fighting at the front of the pack, but crashed out when approaching three-quarters distance and was left content with a classification of 27th overall.

The following year’s event was just as inauspicious – fourth in the qualifying race was once again unrewarded, albeit this time not of his own making. Driving for Banjo Matthews, his engine gave way after 127 laps.

In fact, Foyt’s first experience of the chequered flag in the Daytona 500 came in 1969, grabbing a long-overdue fourth place finish – albeit a lap down. Retiring from the race the following year, Foyt took third in ’71 with Wood Brothers.

He remained with them for the following year, in which the Grand National Series became the Winston Cup Series. Making his mark under the new moniker, Foyt produced an overwhelmingly dominant display to streak to his first and only Daytona 500 win, leading 167 laps and finishing almost two laps ahead of second-placed Charlie Glotzbach.

Foyt raced the Daytona 500 for another two decades, but only finished six more times – a third place in 1979 his best finish post-victory. Failing to qualify in 1993, Foyt elected to bring an end to his 30-year long Daytona exploits.

]]>Pedro Diniz: Formula One’s best pay driver?https://gprejects.com/centrale/features/pedro-diniz-formula-ones-best-pay-driver
Sat, 27 Jan 2018 11:06:25 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1543The 1990s are often considered to be the heyday of the “pay driver” in Formula One, with such luminaries as Giovanni Lavaggi, Taki Inoue and Jean-Denis Deletraz thrilling audiences worldwide in their quest to drive F1 cars as slowly as possible. Pedro Paulo Diniz was initially considered as just another driver whose wallet outstripped his talent. However, his career points tally tells a far different story, one that is worth revisiting.

The son of a supermarket CEO, Pedro was a late convert to motorsport, only taking up karting when he was 17. In the early 1990s the young Diniz crossed paths with junior team aficionado Guido Forti, who signed him up to drive for his eponymous F3000 team. His junior results made for grim reading. In two seasons, Pedro secured just one points finish, battling in vain against future motorsport greats. But his position at Forti was secure as the team geared up to enter Formula One in 1995, funded largely by the Diniz family’s connections.

Diniz would be partnered with fellow Brazilian Roberto “SuperSub” Moreno, 11 years his senior, with Moreno expected to push the team forward with his experience. No-one in the paddock gave Diniz a fair trial. After all, he was only here because of his money. Not that he was going to have much, if any chance of disproving this view given the proverbial dogs dinner Forti’s designers had cooked up. The FG01 had seemingly been conceived with little regard for any of the aerodynamic and technological advances in open-wheel design since the 1980s. The rear of the grid beckoned for the Italian squad.

Over the course of 1995, Moreno and Diniz toiled away, the elder driver clearly losing interest as the season progressed. Only once did Moreno beat Diniz when both drivers finished. Pedro though was keen to make an impact, clocking up ten race finishes from seventeen attempts. But Australia was the high water mark. The tight streets of Adelaide took a heavy toll on equipment and by the time the chequered flag dropped, Pedro was still circulating in seventh place!

One might have thought Diniz would have stayed at Forti, with his wealth helping to develop a far more potent car for the 1996 season. However, a much more attractive seat had opened up at Ligier. The French team had been negotiating a deal for the notoriously exuberant Robby Gordon to partner Olivier Panis, only for the American to decide he’d rather stay in CART. While F1 was robbed of the chance of seeing a true loose cannon on the grid, it opened the door for Pedro.

Team manager Tom Walkinshaw was not particularly impressed initially, but very quickly changed his tune when he realised the scale of Diniz’s backing. £10 million in Parmalat money certainly settled the argument, and the Brazilian was unveiled as a Ligier driver for the 1996 season, dealing a hammer blow to Forti’s future as their budget disappeared overnight. With Panis pretty much part of the furniture at the French team, Diniz was viewed once again as simply a means to pay the bills. Not that this mattered much to Walkinshaw, as a few months into 1996 he bailed from Ligier and purchased Arrows.

Who ordered fried Diniz today? (Photo: @1990sF1 on Twitter)

The defining image of Pedro’s 1996 occurred in Argentina. In a clumsy attempt to lap Luca Badoer, who had inherited the thankless task of pedalling the Forti FG01, Diniz ended up tipping the Italian driver into a barrel roll. A few laps later, the fuel valve on the Ligier jammed open as Pedro roared away from the pits. With fuel spraying all over the rear tyres and hot engine elements, you don’t need a science degree to work out what happened next. Diniz’s Ligier spun off in a fireball, the Brazilian having to make a rapid exit from the cockpit. A fire that was more dramatic than serious, it gave the British tabloids a chance to cook up an iconic pun – Diniz In The Oven.

This incident along with Panis’s shock win in Monaco overshadowed a second respectable season for Diniz. He was much closer to Panis than the standings show, as the Frenchman only scored another three points to compliment his victory. Pedro was able to contribute to Ligier’s total as well. While the rest of the field disintegrated during the rain-affected Spanish GP, Diniz clung on and finished sixth, bringing home his first career point. He would go on to secure a further sixth in Italy, marking the final time the Ligier name scored points in F1.

As Alain Prost took full charge of Ligier and implemented his desired changes, Diniz was in need of fresh employment for 1997. Elsewhere in the paddock, Tom Walkinshaw had pulled off the steal of the century, signing reigning World Champion Damon Hill to race for Arrows in 1997. TWR was not awash with cash however, and the Scotsman realised the only way he could afford Hill was to find a driver with a budget. A Brazilian driver with lots of supermarket cash certainly fit the bill. A three-year deal was hurriedly bashed out between Arrows and Diniz. It is believed around £12 million in Parmalat money entered Arrow’s coffers, most of which was then transferred into Hill’s bank account, leaving very little for the team itself.

The launch of a world beater, if you believed Tom Walkinshaw. (Photo: @1990sF1 on Twitter)

Walkinshaw had promised a world beater. The reality was rather quite different. On unproven Bridgestone rubber and Yamaha engines which had hardly set the F1 world alight, the Arrows A18 was a midfield car at best, and despite attracting extra sponsorship cash from Danka, Hill’s salary meant there was not enough money to develop the car properly. The first race of the year highlighted this.

In Melbourne while most of the paddock was distracted by the slow-motion train crash taking place at Mastercard Lola, others took interest in Arrows lurching from one disaster to another. The A18 seemed incapable of stringing together more than two laps without breaking down, and by the end of Saturday’s session Pedro had fallen foul of the 107% rule. For a time it looked like the Brazilian would be joining the Lola drivers in an early bath, but thanks to some hard-headed negotiations, the stewards allowed Diniz to race. He repaid Arrows by bringing home an unlikely tenth place, almost unthinkable at the start of the weekend.

Wringing the neck of the Arrows A18, Brazil 1997.

Thereafter Pedro settled down to the job. No-one realistically expected him to challenge Hill, but many observers were surprised how close the Brazilian was to the champion’s pace. This included a stellar qualifying session at Spa, where Diniz not only outqualified Hill, his lap was good enough for eighth on the grid. The Nurburgring was where everything clicked for Pedro. He finished a career-high fifth, netting two points for Arrows.

1998 presented relative stability for Diniz. With Hill moving on to Jordan, the highly-rated Mika Salo jumped on board, having spent three seasons toiling at Tyrrell. Once again, Diniz was expected to play a supporting role. Most of the Parmalat cash this season would be used to subsidise Tom Walkinshaw’s latest pet project. Ever the wheeler dealer, he had bought out Brian Hart’s engine company in late 1997, arguing that building an integral car was the only way forward for Arrows. Designer John Barnard penned the A19, which was a beautiful and complex weapon. To the casual observer, it seemed the team was about to spring an enormous surprise.

But, as ever with Arrows, it was a false dawn. Trying to develop engines on a budget which Ferrari, Mercedes and Mugen-Honda eclipsed several times over was only going to end badly. The defining image of 1998 was the sight of A19s parked at the side of the track having broken down, most embarrassingly at Spain where Salo and Diniz suffered simultaneous engine failures in sight of each other. The Brazilian only saw the chequered flag five times from sixteen attempts that year.

However, there were slivers of sunlight amidst the gloom, particularly at Monaco where the team brought home a double points finish. Salo’s prowess netted him fourth and Diniz was rewarded with sixth, having withstood a clumsy, desperate dive from Michael Schumacher at the chicane on the final lap.

Pedro’s finest hour in Formula One? Spa 1998.

Then there was Belgium, arguably Diniz’s finest hour in the sport. The Brazilian had edged Salo by just two tenths in qualifying, a margin that proved critical on Sunday, when both A19s were reduced to their constituent parts in the enormous first lap pile up. With only one spare tub available, Diniz’s higher grid position came up trumps and it was he who lined up for the restart an hour later. Navigating through heavy attrition and the worst that the Belgian weather could throw at Spa, Pedro brought his car home in fifth place. His efforts bolstered Arrows’ points total enough for the team to vault ahead of Stewart in the constructors.

Matching Salo in the overall standings had done wonders for Diniz’s reputation. But inside the team, relations between Pedro and Tom Walkinshaw had become strained, unsurprisingly given the Scotsman’s fondness for shaking things up on a whim. Towards the end of the 1998 season, the usual silly season rumours began to fly, with Diniz being linked to the new BAR team. Jacques Villeneuve very quickly shot down such speculation.

Further up the paddock though, a seat at Sauber had become available, and with generous funding, Ferrari engines, and a stable organisation, seemed an altogether more harmonious proposition than another year at Leafield. In October 1998, Pedro Diniz was unveiled as a Sauber driver, partnering the veteran Jean Alesi. The deal provoked a fair amount of positive coverage; indeed the ITV season preview book for 1999 emphasised that he had earned this seat on merit. That being said, £10 million of Parmalat cash no doubt made the deal sweeter for team manager Peter Sauber. Walkinshaw was livid, insisting that Diniz had illegally broken his contract with Arrows. The Scotsman took the matter to the courts, a decision he would later bitterly regret.

The Sauber C18 was regarded as having considerably strong race pace. Unfortunately, this was negated by poor one-lap pace and horrendous reliability. Pedro only saw the chequered flag four times out of 16 attempts in 1999. Crucially however, three of those finishes were in the points, a trio of sixth places netting a further three points to Diniz’s career total, enough to break him into double figures. Indeed, the Brazilian was able to post consecutive points finishes in Great Britain and Austria, the first time he had managed this feat.

Sauber could only muster five points in 1999, their worst season until their recent travails, and when Pedro’s three points are taken into consideration, it becomes apparent that Alesi only contributed two points. Do the maths; Pedro had outscored a team mate for the first time in his career.

However, a major incident once again overshadowed Diniz’s good performances. At the Nurburgring, Damon Hill’s Jordan ground to a halt in the middle of the pack with electrical failure. While taking evasive action, Alexander Wurz pitched Diniz into a sickening roll, the Sauber eventually coming to rest upside down in the grass. The F1 paddock held its breath as TV footage confirmed the roll hoop had been destroyed. Pedro could not be seen. As marshals gingerly righted the Sauber, everyone sighed in relief. Diniz was intact, and unhurt. The high cockpit sides had prevented the Brazilian being crushed to death.

Pedro’s stock in F1 had never been higher as he entered the new decade. Peter Sauber spoke warmly of the Brazilian, mentioning that his experience would help push the team forward. With Alesi moving on to Prost, Diniz would be partnered again with Mika Salo, this time with the caveat that both could expect equal treatment. But unlike 1998, Salo clearly had the upper hand, scoring all six of Sauber’s points that year.

While he would not be the only midfielder winding up pointless in 2000 (Johnny Herbert says hello), Diniz’s season was littered with spins and silly contretemps, the most serious incident occurring at Hockenheim where he sideswiped his former team mate Alesi at 180mph, pitching the Frenchman’s Prost into a flight of destruction along the wall. 2000 dealt a sledgehammer blow to Diniz’s reputation. It was as if he’d seemingly regressed as a driver, and no-one was particularly surprised when Peter Sauber did not offer him a new contract. Speculative negotiations for a Minardi seat came to nothing. Seeing the writing on the wall, Pedro hung up the helmet, having scored ten points from 98 races.

Tensions were already running high between Diniz and Prost by this point

But that was not the end of Pedro in Formula One. It was announced in November 2000 that the Diniz family had bought a 40% stake in the Prost team, and Pedro returned to the paddock in a management role. Alain Prost continued with his winning ways by almost immediately falling out with Diniz. Coming off a horror show 2000, Prost were attempting to rebuild around a customer Ferrari package. This did not come cheap. Nor were the constant repair bills Luciano Burti racked up. When the lack of TV rights money began strangling the team midway through 2001, the Diniz family made an offer to buy Alain out. While they wouldn’t have the capital to sustain the team long-term, they would at least be able to stabilise the outfit in the hope of finding a buyer. With typical stubborn grace Alain refused any offers, and the fate of the team was sealed when the Diniz family walked away in November 2001, having cut their losses.

Pedro’s association with Formula One ended in early 2002 when the Court of Appeal threw out Tom Walkinshaw’s long-protracted writ against the driver. $750,000 in damages awarded to Diniz marked probably the only time Pedro made money in F1, and dealt a crippling blow to Arrows, pushing them further into the financial black hole which would consume the team later that year.

While Pedro’s career total of ten points over six seasons in the sport pales in comparison with modern-day “pay drivers” such as Sergio Perez, Pastor Maldonado and Lance Stroll, this does not take into account the changes to Formula One’s points structure since the early 2000s. In addition, the rising cost of motorsport means young drivers are expected to bring sponsorship to secure seats. Arguably even double world champion Fernando Alonso can be considered a pay driver, due to his long-term Santander backing. The aforementioned trio of “modern” pay drivers have also had significant success in junior categories, something Diniz’s career lacks.

While some may still write off Diniz as a mere pay driver, to match and beat names like Moreno, Panis, Salo and Alesi, while giving a world champion a serious wake-up call clearly shows Pedro had the talent to cut it in Formula One. He was not going to challenge for titles or even be a frontrunner, but until his disastrous 2000 the Diniz name symbolised steady, midfield achievement, something he can be proud about.

As for Pedro himself, he now runs an organic farm, having briefly dabbled with running a Formula Renault series in his native Brazil.

]]>Reject of the Year: 2017https://gprejects.com/centrale/roty/reject-of-the-year-2017
Sat, 13 Jan 2018 11:00:19 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1514Another season of Formula One has entered the record books, but before 2017 can be laid to rest there’s a rather prestigious award to hand out. That’s right, it’s Reject of the Year time once again.

The new aero regulations for 2017 gave us a genuine two-horse race between Mercedes and Ferrari for both titles, with Red Bull joining the battle for top honours as the season progressed. Emotions and controversy ran wild as Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel traded wins throughout the year, a title battle which sadly petered out when the German’s chariot suffered a bout of rather typical Italian unreliability at the worst possible time.

Every team managed to put points on the board, with Sauber going home with the wooden spoon this time. Deciding the official Reject of the Year podium proved tricky as there were a number of early contenders who noticeably improved by season’s end, and vice versa. Nonetheless, through heated discussions across the Grand Prix Rejects forum and chatroom, we’ve managed to come up with our top three.

3rd– Scuderia Toro Rosso

2017 started brightly for Farenza, with Carlos Sainz Jr notching up a series of consistent points finishes. However it all unravelled by season’s end, with the team reduced to scrapping with Sauber at the wrong end of the field.

While Sainz shone, Daniil Kvyat was hamstrung by a lack of support within the team, causing the Russian to overdrive and get involved in silly incidents. After throwing away a good finish in Singapore, Kvyat was benched for Malaysia and Japan in favour of reigning GP2 champion Pierre Gasly, before being installed in the car again for Austin while Gasly challenged for the Super Formula title. A last gasp tenth for Daniil was rewarded by being handed his P45, with many in the paddock lamenting at how badly Red Bull had treated the Russian over the last two seasons.

An all-too familiar sight for the Toro Rosso crew in 2017 (Photo: XPB)

As Sainz upped sticks to Renault, Toro Rosso managed to prise former Red Bull Academy driver and endurance ace Brendon Hartley from his recently signed IndyCar contract as a replacement. The new lineup of Gasly/Hartley struggled immensely, not helped by a seemingly endless array of engine problems while Renault and Red Bull blamed each other for the mess.

Illustrating how sour the relationship had got, Renault seriously considered withholding engines for Abu Dhabi, the dirty laundry being aired to all and sundry in the paddock. In a final kick in the teeth for Farenza, Renault’s works team managed to scamper away with sixth in the constructors, a place Toro Rosso had occupied for most of the year.

The move to Honda power for 2018 is a gamble which may possibly pay off. It all depends whether Honda can get their house in order, which neatly segues us to the next step of the ROTY podium.

2nd – McLaren-Honda

Another day, another failure.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After two years of strife, everything should have come good for Woking in 2017. However, Honda produced an utter pup of an engine, one that was seemingly worse than their 2015 unit. A familiar sight in testing and during the early season was Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne parking their cars in the pits or at the side of the track. Even making it to the chequered flag was seen as an achievement.

Indeed, the only positive publicity McLaren generated in the first half of the year was by letting Alonso participate in the Indianapolis 500, a move which would’ve been unthinkable during the Ron Dennis era. The Spaniard relished his time stateside, getting up to speed quickly and mastering the Brickyard. His day was cut short by a Honda engine failure, in a bout of irony that Alanis Morissette would no doubt approve of.

The only laps a McLaren would lead all year long. Photo: Bret Kelley / INDYCAR

With Alonso in America, McLaren managed to coax an unwilling Jenson Button out of retirement for the Monaco GP. No doubt annoyed at having his autobiography writing sessions interrupted, the former champion phoned in his performance, which ended in a comical yet rather dangerous clash with Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber.

It took until the chaotic race in Baku for McLaren to trouble the scoreboard, and from then on in a steady stream of minor points finishes trickled in, enough for the team to leapfrog Sauber in the standings. By season’s end Honda had managed to achieve a modicum of respectability, in contrast to the litany of failures plaguing the Renault teams.

By then though the Honda/McLaren relationship had spluttered past the point of no return. For 2018 it’s customer Renault power for McLaren, a move which should see Alonso and Vandoorne heading towards the sharp end of the field. However, it remains to be seen whether the team can absorb a £60 million hole in their budget, a consequence of Honda’s departure.

1st – Jolyon Palmer

Palmer struggled to turn the corner in 2017. Photo: Renault Sport

Jonathan Palmer’s son was confirmed at the factory Renault squad for 2017 in a manner which suggested the team didn’t actually want him. This was an omen for how his season would pan out.

To give Palmer his dues he had managed to match Kevin Magnussen over the course of 2016, and it wouldn’t take a huge amount of imagination to believe he would be able to perform similarly against new team mate Nico Hulkenberg. The reality was rather quite different.

In sixteen attempts, Palmer never outqualified his team mate. Over this same period Hulkenberg racked up 34 points and several appearances in Q3. Renault were embroiled in a tight battle for sixth overall with Toro Rosso and Haas during the season. Palmer’s impression of a boat anchor effectively meant Renault were showing up to fight with one hand tied behind their back.

The only bright spot was Singapore, where Jolyon navigated his way through terrible weather and heavy attrition to bring home sixth, his best finish in Formula One. It was too little, too late though.

Waving goodbye to his F1 career?

Renault had negotiated a deal for Carlos Sainz Jr to partner Hulkenberg for 2018. This was then brought forward to where the Spaniard replaced Palmer for the race in Austin. Which leads us to the kicker; Sainz was immediately up to speed in an unfamiliar car and scored points on his Renault debut, giving Hulkenberg a serious wake-up call in the process.

A reserve role in Formula One or a Formula E race seat appears to be Palmer’s most likely destination for 2018 and beyond.

But if they do complain, at least there’s nothing these days quite like the Las Vegas street circuit, which held the final round of the 1981 and 1982 championships. Once each year, the parking lot of the Caesars Palace Hotel was transformed into a racetrack. When the planned track design was released, Motoring News ran a headline proclaiming: “MICKEYEST MOUSE EVER.”

The layout was 3.650 kilometres long and over 75 laps, a total race distance clocked in at 273.750 kilometres. Consisting of a total of 14 corners, most of them rather repetitive, the track was driven counter clockwise. That was not unusual for American audiences, used to seeing races run on anti-clockwise ovals most of the time. However, by Grand Prix standards, this was an anomaly – most Formula 1 drivers prefer clockwise, because the majority of European tracks are built that way.

As a result, the unusual layout was a challenge for both drivers and machines. Lots of heavy braking points after fast straights (a lap of the track averaged over 100mph) caused a lot of brake, gearbox and engine-related trouble. The anti-clockwise direction and the heat of the Nevada desert tested the drivers’ physical strength – especially their neck muscles – as well as their stamina and endurance. Over the course of two Grands Prix, there were 32 retirements.

The Caesars Palace car-park is clearly seen in the centre of this shot!

It wasn’t only the drivers who disliked the circuit, and the mechanics also had their fair share of complaints. The makeshift pit lane was way too narrow, and could barely accommodate the 30-odd cars that entered the two grands prix there. With no garage facilities to speak of, the cars were left standing in the open air, only centimetres from the fast lane of the pits. The mechanics had precious little space to work on the cars. It was all a bit unprofessional, especially when so much was at stake, since both races turned out to be championship deciders.

Having said that, it wasn’t all bad. The presentation of the circuit at least was better than expected, and it had been made as wide as possible to facilitate overtaking. The organisers had even put in place run-off areas and sand traps. And, unusually for a temporary circuit, the surface was ultra-smooth. No doubt this had something to do with famous Long Beach promoter Chris Pook, also involved with this Las Vegas project, getting taxi drivers to drive around the track to bed down the tarmac!

But still, you might be wondering, how on earth did this place become a suitable location for the final Grand Prix of the year?

The answer is very simple: money.

The season-ending race had traditionally been at Watkins Glen, but they had been unable to meet financial obligations for 1981. By contrast Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world, had no such concerns. Caesars Palace wanted a good publicity stunt to lure people into the casino, and to help rid Las Vegas of its image of Mafia connections.

It didn’t work, and barely any spectators went to the Grand Prix in either year. People didn’t want to sit all day in the burning desert sun, with no greenery in sight (this was a car park, after all) to watch a car race. Undoubtedly, the Las Vegas visitors were more concerned with trying to make their fortunes on the roulette wheels and craps tables inside. The crowd figure in 1982 was less than 30,000, by far the smallest attendance all year.

But what happened on the track itself? Generally, the turbo engines, especially those of Ferrari, Renault, and the BMW in the Brabham, were much faster than the normally aspirated Ford V8s. Despite the higher-than-expected average speed, Las Vegas was still too twisty for the turbos which were still in an early stage of development, and still suffered greatly from turbo-lag. This evened up the field and gave the Cosworth runners a better-than-usual chance of winning.

1981 offered a three-way battle for the title between Williams’ Carlos Reutemann, who came to Las Vegas on 49 points, Brabham’s Nelson Piquet on 48 and, as an outsider, Ligier’s Jacques Laffite on 43. While Laffite was never truly in the hunt, Reutemann was in a determined mood in practice and took pole from team-mate Alan Jones. Meanwhile, Piquet struggled. In practice, he battled neck and back problems – at one stage, he even required a long massage session from boxer Sugar Ray Leonard’s masseur!

By this stage, there was no love lost between Jones and Reutemann, and at no stage was Jones likely to help the Argentine’s title bid. The Australian took the lead at the start and led all the way to win his final race before his first retirement. Reutemann, though, on one of his moody off-days, lost his 4th gear early, encountered oversteer, and fell all the way to 8th. Piquet, despite all his exhaustion, claimed two points for 5th and pipped Reutemann to the title by one solitary point.

In 1982, the teams arrived in Las Vegas with Williams’ Keke Rosberg on 42 points and McLaren’s John Watson on 35. Ferrari’s Didier Pironi had 39, but he had been seriously injured in Germany. The Renaults of Rene Arnoux and Alain Prost claimed the front row and led early, but Arnoux retired and Prost fell back with a nasty vibration. The win was snapped up by Michele Alboreto in the non-turbo Tyrrell, who previously had only managed a podium place at Imola along with other minor point-scoring positions.

Watson was as low as 12th early, but charged back up to 2nd, although it was to no avail. Rosberg claimed 5th place which sealed the championship. The race was also notable for being the last race for the great Mario Andretti, and also for another American, Eddie Cheever, claiming 3rd in the Matra turbo-powered Ligier.

That was the last F1 action on the track in the Las Vegas car park.

After two years, the Formula 1 fraternity had had enough, even though the event as a whole had probably exceeded the low expectations. The location was abandoned and left for CART to use. In the 1990s, there was a second attempt to host a Grand Prix in Las Vegas, but the casinos could not agree to where the new track should be built. Eventually, when plans were laid for a permanent track south of the casino strip, the United States GP found a new home at Indianapolis, and the notion of the Las Vegas Grand Prix being revived was quietly shelved for a number of years.

Following Liberty Media’s overhaul of Formula 1, Las Vegas was fleetingly linked with a return to the calendar, apparently backed by investment from China. Pitched as a night race, the sun appeared to set once again on a potential return to the City of Lights.

]]>2001: A Benetton Odysseyhttps://gprejects.com/centrale/features/2001-a-benetton-odyssey
Sat, 11 Nov 2017 12:41:43 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1285In 1995, the Benetton Formula One team was on top of the motorsport world, and bagged both World Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships that year. Six years later, the Benetton name left the sport having scored a measly ten points all year long. Where did it all go so wrong?

1995 was the culmination of Benetton’s upward mobility sustained over the previous few years, but the season ended with an exodus of key personnel. Michael Schumacher decamped to Ferrari, with technical demi-gods Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne in tow.

The decline was clear; from winning the constructors’ championship in 1995, the team slumped to third in ‘97, and then again to sixth in ‘99. A slight rebound was achieved at the turn of the millennium, with Giancarlo Fisichella’s podiums ensuring that Benetton pipped BAR to fourth on count-back, but let’s face the facts here: post-1995, the team managed one further win – courtesy of Gerhard Berger at Hockenheim in ’97.

After a decade and a half of ownership, the Benetton family came to the conclusion that the squad’s continuing slide in form could affect the team’s value. Having already batted off an approach by the Ford Motor Company a few years earlier, an offer came through that was too good to refuse.

On March 16th 2000, it was announced that Renault had purchased the team for approximately $120 million. The cars would race under the Benetton name until the end of 2001, with the Renault name officially returning in 2002. Immediate controversy followed as the new owners reinstalled Flavio Briatore as team manager, reportedly against the wishes of Benetton.

Heading up Benetton during the team’s glory days, the brilliant but controversial Briatore was initially shown the exit door in September 1997. His replacement was no-nonsense Prodrive boss David Richards but, as the team’s competitiveness tailed off as the season progressed, Richards was gone by the end of 1998, replaced by Rocco Benetton who had little impact on arresting his family team’s slide.

One could argue that the lethargic feel of the team had also affected the liveries, going from the vibrant multi-coloured chaos of the early 1990s to a smart but staid light blue by 2000. While Forsythe Racing over in the CART series demonstrated what could be done with a light blue livery, Benetton’s livery appeared to be the result of minimal effort, a squad very much going through the motions. Briatore’s return certainly injected some colour back into the team.

In the years prior to Renault’s takeover, Benetton was stuck running a Playlife-badged, Mecachrome-maintained ’97 Renault unit for three seasons in a row. Powering a combination of Williams, BAR, Arrows and Benetton during this period, the engine earned a reputation for sturdiness. It was perhaps expected in many quarters that Renault’s all-new V10 for 2001 would be based largely along the lines of this enormously successful unit, which had remained competitive for years. Jean-Jacques His, Renault’s engine design guru, had other ideas.

From a blank piece of paper, he penned a wide-angle V10 engine, most notably with its cylinders offset at 111°. The benefits of such a design would lie in aerodynamic packaging, reducing the centre of gravity at the rear of the car, and enabling the car to run extra ballast where needed. It was quite literally His’ engine and, if Renault got it right, could lead to a minor revolution.

But when the engine was tested extensively in a B200 test mule, the initial results made for grim reading. Down on horsepower, Renault’s new design was also horrendously unreliable. Warning signs were already starting to appear at the B201’s launch in Venice at the beginning of February; Briatore and Renault chief Patrick Faure were cagey about the expectations for 2001, and new technical chief Mike Gascoyne was equally as taciturn. “We’re not expecting things to be easy in the first part of the season,” Gascoyne told F1 Racing.

What they perhaps didn’t realise is how bad things would actually be.

The season-opener at Melbourne rather set the tone, and Fisichella and Button could only manage 16th and 17th on the grid, over three seconds slower than Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari. The team opted to take it easy in the race, using the Albert Park circuit to clock mileage. By mid-distance, the B201s were running dead last, eventually finishing there. Fisichella limped home in 13th, three laps behind the leaders and a full lap behind Fernando Alonso’s Minardi. Thanks to an electrical failure, Button parked his car on lap 52, officially classified 14th. The nightmare was just beginning.

Two weeks later, the paddock convened at Sepang for the second race of the year, with Benetton reprising their roles of qualifying 16th and 17th. Disappointment soon became embarrassment, as Fisichella lined up in the wrong grid slot. Perhaps hoping not to be noticed, he attempted to crawl over to the correct side of the grid.

The cameras caught him at the exact moment he stalled his car in the middle of the track. Oh, Giancarlo…

As the field was dispatched for a second formation lap, the Italian was wheeled into the pitlane. From the pitlane, Fisichella took advantage of the chaotic opening laps to run 7th for a brief period, but eventually retired with fuel pressure issues. His team mate floated around at the bottom end of the midfield and finished 11th, ahead of both Minardis and the hapless Gaston Mazzacane, but truth be told nowhere near the rest of the midfield.

At the next round in Brazil – and very much against the run of play – Benetton-Renault scored a point.

The team found itself mired at the wrong end of the grid in practice and qualifying, the Renault engine struggling to match the top speed of its contemporaries. Luckily, attrition and changing conditions hit Interlagos, and Fisichella took advantage to record a shock 6th place finish.

That solitary point was the highlight of Benetton’s early season. Too often, the light-blue machines were left to do battle with the tail-end teams thanks to the shortcomings of the Renault. Granted, the Enstone team’s latest chassis was hardly up to scratch, and Jenson Button described the B201 as “a total dog to drive” in his autobiography, Life to the Limit. It didn’t even have power steering.

Already, the relationship between Benetton and Renault was becoming marginally fractious. Renault allegedly asked Benetton to bolt in one of the old Playlife-badged engines in a bid to illustrate that the B201 chassis was not exactly up to par.

There was one race on the calendar that the team would be forgiven for looking forward to: Monaco. The tight streets of Monte-Carlo would – in theory, at least – negate the horsepower deficit of the V10. With attrition also likely to run wild, this appeared to be Benetton’s best chance of grabbing some more precious points. The B201s were comfortably running in the midfield during free practice, and in qualifying Fisichella finally brought the team a top 10 qualifying position. Despite only managing 17th, Button was simply relieved at getting off the back row of the grid.

Come race day both drivers successfully navigated the opening laps, with Fisichella hustling his car further up the grid as frontrunners ran into problems. It looked like a great result was on the cards.

On lap 44, it all went wrong.

Harrying Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR for fifth, the Italian overcooked it turning into St Devote and the unforgiving barrier claimed its latest victim. A potential podium finish was thrown away from the merest of mistakes.

Button meanwhile did enough for 7th position, but the sheer amount of attrition though had been a gift for two of Benetton’s midfield rivals. Jaguar’s update package for their recalcitrant R2 had suddenly turned their car into a player in the hands of Eddie Irvine, who finished third for Jaguar’s first points of the season. To rub salt into the wound, Jean Alesi finished sixth in his Prost. Benetton was now 9th in the Constructors’ championship – behind Arrows but just ahead of the French outfit on count-back.

Benetton looked down and out, especially after a dire Canadian Grand Prix. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was historically a happy hunting ground for Fisichella and, on the back of a streak of four podium finishes at the circuit, casual observers may have considered that another was possible.

Instead, the long straights completely exposed the Renault V10’s shortcomings. The team were resigned to fighting for the wooden spoon with the similarly breathless Minardis at the bottom of the timesheets. Picture Benetton, a two-time championship winning team struggling to overhaul Minardi, which was armed with a car thrown together in six weeks and a four-year old engine. It must have been humiliating for the engineers at Enstone and Viry-Châtillon respectively.

The problems mounted; Button jumped the start and copped a stop-go penalty for his troubles, and later on the first lap Fisichella misjudged his braking point at the hairpin and deranged his front wing on Bernoldi’s Arrows. Incredibly, the race was about to get even more embarrassing. The Arrows was fitted with an Asiatech engine – little more than a gutless year-old Peugeot, but it had the legs on the B201s on the back straight. Bernoldi slipstreamed Button, who swerved left to avoid being steamrolled…straight into the path of Fisichella.

Fisichella’s race ended on the spot. Button was somehow able to continue, but lasted only a few laps more before an oil leak mercifully ended the weekend for Benetton. With Jean Alesi scoring a further brace of points for Prost, this meant Benetton were now 10th in the standings, with little immediate prospect of improvement.

Sometimes, it was difficult to know which car was faster. (EMPICS)

However, steady progress from Renault and a raft of upgrades from Enstone for the final five races of the season helped the team conduct a small turnaround in form – surprisingly, at two of the faster venues on the calendar.

For the final race on the original high-speed Hockenheim, the team locked out the ninth row of the grid. Button was lucky not to have Luciano Burti’s Prost land on top of him during the spectacular accident that forced a race restart.

It seemed like a now-usual afternoon for Benetton, and the duo of Fisichella and Button both lost ground to the all-too-familiar Bernoldi. Then, attrition hit. The track lived up to its car-killing reputation, and by the end only 10 cars were still circulating when the chequered flag dropped – the German crowd treated to a smorgasbord of engine failures.

In context of their early issues, it was incredible that both Benettons survived. It was even more incredible that they were running fourth and fifth! Fisichella and Button chased third-placed Jacques Villeneuve to the line to bring home a massive five points for the team, the latter snatching his first points finish since the previous year’s Japanese Grand Prix. This was an enormous boost for Enstone.

Although Hungary was a non-event, Belgium was the real high water mark. Firstly, Fisichella secured the team’s best qualifying result of the year so far with 8th. Button lagged further down the field in 15th. By this point in the season, the team had finally got its new-for-2001 launch control software dialled in, and both drivers made brilliant use of it. Button rose to ninth at the first start, then to fifth at the restart following Burti’s colossal accident at Blanchimont.

Fisichella fared even better. Rocketing his way up to third place during the initial start, the Italian clawed his way into second on the restart. Almost wresting the lead from Michael Schumacher at La Source, Fisichella’s real battle was with the much faster David Coulthard. Aided by an unconventional tyre strategy, in which the team only changed the rear tyres at each pitstop, Fisichella managed to fend off the McLaren for more than half the race, but reached an impasse catching up to lap Bernoldi. Coulthard capitalised to grab second, with Fisichella consolidating his third place. It was a far cry from Melbourne.

It was to be the final points finish in Benetton’s history. Against the odds, Fisichella kept Benetton’s record of scoring a podium in each season it competed in alive. Amazingly, it emerged that the car had dumped nearly all its oil on the seven-kilometre Spa-Francorchamps circuit. It was a minor miracle Fisichella even made the chequered flag.

Fisi in Spa, en route to Benetton’s final podium (Carsten Riede)

The rest of the season petered out. Focusing firmly on 2002 and its new Renault guise, Benetton’s successful time in Formula 1 ended on a flat note.

Although 2001 was largely development year for Renault, as they invested in the depleted infrastructure, it was certainly the weakest season for Benetton in its 16 years as an F1 constructor. In the present day’s formula of four engines per season, it’s absolutely staggering that Renault manufactured over 250 of their V10 engines over the course of the year.

Ultimately, a collection of ten points and seventh in the constructors’ championship was a sad way for one of the more colourful outfits in Formula One to bow out. However, the groundwork had been laid for future success at Enstone.

]]>Reject Games: F1 Career Challengehttps://gprejects.com/centrale/games/reject-games-f1-career-challenge
Sat, 14 Oct 2017 17:35:52 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1251Since 2010, Codemasters has been the sole company responsible for producing Formula 1 games, but between the late 1990s and early 2000s, F1 game enthusiasts were spoiled for choice. Different developers and publishers had access to the much-coveted FOM license, meaning that there was plenty of competition across the major consoles.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe produced a raft of games for both Playstations 1 and 2, while Nintendo’s F-1 World Grand Prix offerings and Geoff Crammond’s sporadic-but-brilliant Grand Prix series all offered a range of experiences. Starting from the year 2000, EA Sports also got involved, bringing their F1 series to a variety of platforms.

The first offering, F1 2000, was a very strong contender in the myriad F1 games available. EA continued in that vein to produce some high-quality games which, while not amazingly in-depth and detailed, presented good graphics and straight-forward, fast-paced gameplay. EA also produced F1 Manager, a loveable-but-flawed management sim which held its own against Microprose’s much-vaunted Grand Prix Manager series.

From left to right: EA’s console versions of F1 2000, F1 2001 and F1 2002

EA’s license came to an end in 2003 after exclusivity was granted to SCEE. Rather than produce F1 2003, EA decided to produce something quite innovative in its final instalment. F1 Challenge ’99-‘02 was the final PC release, and boasted the advanced gMotor engine from developers ISI – which is still in use today in the rFactor series. “F1C” offered realistic physics, plenty of customisation options, and plenty of longevity.

F1C’s console counterpart, F1 Career Challenge, was altogether less successful.

The two games with slightly different names both adopt a common theme, a four-year career from the 1999 to the 2002 season. F1 Career Challenge was evidently the poorer of the two, and barely even stacks up against EA’s earlier console offerings. While F1C was farmed out to ISI, F1 Career Challenge was developed by Visual Sciences, the company behind the less-than-stellar Formula 1 ’98. The bar certainly wasn’t raised very high, then.

First impressions are that the menus feel outdated. Compared to the bright, functional menus of EA’s series so far, the choice of dark blues and generic font does little to fire the player up. But that’s all completely forgivable if the actual game is good; sadly, it’s anything but.

Jumping straight into a race, there’s the unmistakable feeling that something’s rather…off. Instead of a conventional racer, where you rev the car up for that optimum getaway, you instead have to time the first press of the accelerator with the moment the lights go off. Juddering off the line sets you up for the pure chaos of the start line action; the AI flails around with no discernible spatial awareness, and the over-dramatic tyre smoke hinders all vision as you attempt to find the first corner.

Oh, about that first corner – good luck picking that braking point correctly. If you’ve played enough F1 games, you’ll know you need to accelerate up to the 100m board, hit the brakes and deftly flick down the gears until you’re able to cruise through the corner. F1 Career Challenge is a bit different. You’ll hit the brakes and come to a complete halt almost immediately. Cue driving test flashbacks when you’ve just been invited to perform an emergency stop.

The steering is also diabolical. It’s honestly impossible to daintily steer into sweeping corners with the analog stick; in F1 Career Challenge, you’re either steering or you’re not. It’s binary, it’s either-or. Even on the lowest setting, the handling’s barely capable of responding to the nuances of F1 car control. It’s a very frustrating process to get used to it, and you’ll be see-sawing at the controls like you’re in control of a particularly wayward boulder.

One of Sony’s official screenshots, which is testament to the graininess. (Sony)

It must be said that the cars appear to be in the right ballpark with regards to styling, although I’d suspect that many of them are recycled (and compressed) assets from previous games. This being said, the graphics themselves are very average, and offer no real step up over PS2/Xbox games from three years prior – it’s all very grainy and over-saturated. Gran Turismo 3, released two years prior on PS2, offers FAR superior visuals.

The career mode itself is perfectly functional, albeit in a very arcade-like fashion. Getting good results comes with the reward of credits, which you can spend on single-use car upgrades, new helmet designs and different “grid babes” – the latter reads like something from Wayne’s World, and one could draw horrifying connotations of purchasing women with points. This could create a potential firestorm, at least if anyone cared enough about the game.

With better results you’ll get more offers from larger teams, but the cars still feel dreadful whichever way you cut it. Managing to get through all four seasons of the career mode should offer some kind of reward, and I lost interest far before I could ever get as far as 2001 – just call me Pedro Diniz.

F1 Career Challenge was certainly ambitious in its scope, but lacks far too much detail and honestly looks worse than EA’s previous offerings on the same platform.

By far the most frustrating factor is the controls; they’re absolute dire and strangely inconsistent. Apart from that there’s nothing really to talk about; something with a tangible career progression should excite, but just fails to hit the mark in most facets. Unless beset by incredible boredom, there’s no chance I’ll voluntary touch this game again. Not for all the grid babes in the world.

It’s like this. Sometimes, you struggle to remember this game existed. Then you remembered that it replaced something that could have been a far more tolerable prospect. However, there are no known instances of F1 Career Challenge holding up David Coulthard at Monaco. Shame.

]]>Larrousse Abuse: When team-mates collidehttps://gprejects.com/centrale/features/larrousse-abuse
Sat, 16 Sep 2017 20:17:18 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1209At the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix, the intensifying battle for supremacy between Force India team-mates Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon boiled over. Pérez’s recalcitrance to let Ocon through at Montréal became the first sign of tension between the two, and their subsequent collisions at Baku and Spa-Francorchamps left the team in pink looking decidedly red-faced.

It’s certainly not the first time that team-mates have committed the cardinal sin of lacking spatial awareness in close-quarter shoot-outs. Twenty years before, Force India’s predecessor Jordan Grand Prix had to manage an increasingly-turbulent relationship between Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralf Schumacher; the duo clashed twice at Buenos Aires and the Nürburgring, leaving Eddie Jordan reeling in a fit of apoplexy. Championship battles have also been affected by team-mates getting too close, and intra-team title fights like Prost vs. Senna and Rosberg vs. Hamilton got a little bit hot under the collar.

However, the fight for dominance isn’t limited to the action at the front; sometimes, team-mates clamouring for attention from the back of the field can result in the wrong kind of publicity.

When Formula 1 was at the peak of its pre-qualifying powers, drivers at the rear were struggling to get onto the grid, let alone having to then make an impression on the larger teams. In 1992, two drivers were falling over each other – quite literally, sometimes – to try and invigorate their F1 careers. One, a pan-European charger whose ability to pull sponsors was arguably better than his racing chops; the other, a Japanese mountain-climbing enthusiast who was just at the beginning of his time in F1.

Bertrand Gachot and Ukyo Katayama signed up for the Larrousse team in ’92 largely on the thickness of their wallets. Both were arguably some of the more capable “pay-drivers” of that era, contributing points as well as finance, but the duo had a lot to prove. Gachot had a reputation to rebuild, having served time in jail the year before having sprayed a taxi driver with CS gas. Save for a half-season in International F3000, Katayama was in his first full season outside his native Japan and had to learn the predominantly-European calendar quickly.

As the season had started to progress, Gachot was starting to get under Katayama’s skin – as the senior driver (and presumably bringing in more cash) Gachot was getting the bulk of the support from the Larrousse team, by then part-owned by French sportscar manufacturer Venturi.

Like the Pérez/Ocon relationship, things took a turn for the worse at Montréal – and both drivers began the weekend off of the back of a mixed Monaco – Gachot scored the team’s first (and only) point of 1992 that weekend, while Katayama had failed to pre-qualify in Monte Carlo.

Katayama managed to qualify 11th at Montreal – the Japanese driver able to stretch the legs of the mercurial Lamborghini V12 on the long straights, with Gachot a little further back on the grid. In the early stages of the race, the two brightly-coloured Venturi-Larrousses soon gravitated toward each other, with Gachot making an electric start to catch up to Katayama. Their battle came to a head at the tight hairpin and, braking far too deep, Gachot speared into the back of Katayama, committing the cardinal sin of team-mate warfare and eliciting a sarcastic “well done, Bertrand” from Eurosport commentator John Watson.

Watch: Katayama vs. Gachot, round 1.

Perhaps karma struck the Luxembourg-born Franco-Belgian, as Gachot then received a disqualification for a jump-start – which perhaps explained how he’d caught up to Katayama so quickly. The Japanese driver was able to carry on, and was running as high as fifth before his Lamborghini engine cried enough with seven laps to spare.

Presumably, team principal Gérard Larrousse read the riot act to his drivers, but that didn’t stop a repeat offense. In his home race at Suzuka, Katayama was unable to use his local knowledge in qualifying to overhaul Gachot, but managed to steal a march on his team-mate as the race got underway.

Once more, Gachot wasn’t about to let his younger team-mate upstage him. Attempting to set himself up for a move on the sister Larrousse at the Casio Triangle, Gachot locked up and caught Katayama’s rear wheel, nearly collecting the home favourite’s head in the process. Amazingly, Katayama managed to limp home to a strong 11th place, while Gachot’s day ended in the gravel following the intra-team contact.

Watch: Katayama vs. Gachot, round 2.

The two managed to keep their hands off each other in the season finale at Adelaide and, having not been able to keep away from each other in 1992, they both wisely kept their distance in the following season. Katayama joined Tyrrell for a four-year stint, becoming “undoubtedly the best Formula One driver that Grand Prix racing has ever produced” in the eyes of Murray Walker, while Gachot took a year out to help the Pacific team gear up for their ultimately pointless crack at Formula 1.

Rule One: don’t hit your team-mate.

]]>Reject Games: Checkered Flaghttps://gprejects.com/centrale/games/checkered-flag
Sat, 12 Aug 2017 10:28:28 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1084After the video games crash in 1983, it could be argued that the previously-successful Atari were the biggest losers in the whole debacle. Credited with taking gaming out of the arcades and into the living room, Atari tasted huge success with the 2600 (and considerably less with the difficult second console, the 5200) before the video game market’s increasingly saturated bubble burst. Losing ground post-crash to competitors Sega and Nintendo over the course of the 1980s, Atari vowed to become top dog once again in the ‘90s. In 1993, they launched the Jaguar, a console that Atari claimed was the first 64-bit console to hit the video games market.

The Jaguar wasn’t up to much, and within a couple of years was relegated to bargain bins and public-access infomercials as Sega, Sony and Nintendo all eclipsed the “Jag” with more powerful and more accessible consoles. Programmers struggled to cope with the Jaguar, and the low number of releases did nothing to assure consumers that the new console provided longevity.

“Looka them yo-yos, that’s the way ya do it…”

One of the few games that trickled through the Jaguar pipeline was Rebellion Developments’ Checkered Flag. Released in 1994, Checkered Flag was essentially a Virtua Racing clone, sporting polygon graphics and a horrendously over-processed intro song that sounds a Giorgio Moroder reworking of Blondie’s “Call Me” (although in reality, I’d love to hear that…). After being greeted by a boxy, formula-style car skidding into view, you’re then able to try and navigate the menu.

First of all, it’s time to pick a car. Selecting a car in Checkered Flag is perhaps the most nuanced of all the options available; each of the six cars offer huge differences and it’s up to the gamer to choose which one is best tailored to their driving style. The variation is staggering and almost encourages existential debate, asking players to think deeply about themselves and build some kind of ethereal bond with just one of the sextet of chariots available.

There’s PENGUINS on this circuit. Seriously.

I chose the orange one because it’s my favourite colour.

Unhelpfully, the other options are tucked away from view and they’ll only be noticed as you cycle up or down on the D-pad. There are the options for various weather conditions, different downforce settings and wet-weather tyres, as well as the selection of ten original circuits. There’s also the option to pick between automatic five-speed gearbox and a manual six-speed, as well as the choice of lap count and the number of “drones” – or AI in normal terms – you race against.

These options suggest a much-needed sense of longevity, but the reality is that the game feels exactly the same come rain or shine – horrible.

You’ll do more flips than you would in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. You’d also wish you were playing it.

Driving the car is like trying to navigate the Titanic around an iceberg; there are no discernable handling qualities whatsoever. There’s no way to brake properly either; if you try to slow your car down to take a corner, a “drone” will channel its inner Tora Takagi and attempt to violently mount the rear of your car. On hitting a wall, the car proceeds to roll over like a skateboard mid-kickflip, before landing conveniently back on its wheels. The “drones” are absolutely pathetic, and you can happily lap them multiple times in a race; the only challenge on-track is the car you’re controlling…oh, and the track itself.

The player is constantly embroiled in a battle with frame-rate and draw-distance, and the developers at Rebellion have used a fog effect to mask the corners creeping up unexpectedly. This is supposed to be a 64-bit console, and yet the polygon graphics offer nothing of a step up over the Super Nintendo’s Star Fox (or Starwing in Europe), a game which was released a year before on a supposedly less-powerful console. Perhaps Rebellion wasn’t in a position to push the latest of Atari’s offerings to its maximum capabilities, but it’s more likely that the Jaguar’s teeth were not quite as sharp as Atari made out.

I know this game is prickly, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so literal…

Like everything else, the music is horrible. Immediately, starting a race bestows the gift of an oversynthesised soundtrack, not dissimilar to a title theme for a low-budget 1980s fantasy series. Luckily, thanks to the Jaguar’s surplus of controller buttons, you can switch the music off by pressing “0”. Alternatively, you can just switch the game off and save yourself the trauma.

Comparing Checkered Flag to Virtua Racing – released on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis two years’ prior – only serves to further underline how poor the game is. Virtua Racing boasts bright colours and similar polygon graphics on a 16-bit system, while Checkered Flag is a foggy, murky mess.

There’s absolutely nothing else to say about this game. It’s patently clear from playing Checkered Flag for a few minutes why the Jaguar was so unpopular; for something that was supposed to be Atari’s return to console glory, the Jag was not up to the task of taking the fight to even the previous-generation of game systems. Checkered Flag is nothing more than series of red flags, matching lumbering gameplay with antiquated graphics, terrible noises and absolutely lacklustre AI. Why even bother?

Checkered Flag was outdated and ancient even at the time of its first appearance. It’s desperately slow, and it’s here because…well, because it’s dire.